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25 Qualities of Cornwall

#OnlyInCornwall

The Cornish pasty industry is worth a whopping £300 million pounds annually – more than 120 million pasties are made per year.

Traditionally, pasties had miners’ initials carved on the outside. They would hold the pasty by the crust (like a handle), eat everything around it and throw the crust away because of the poisonous arsenic dust on their hands.

On average, 4.5 million staying visitors travel to Cornwall every year, spending £1.86 billion in the local economy and supporting around 42,300 jobs.

Cornwall is home to more than 75,000 cows – no wonder the county is famous for clotted cream and ice cream.

There are over 300 beaches in Cornwall, 80% of the county is surrounded by the sea.

Fisherman in Cornwall catch over 40 different types of fish; more varieties than anywhere else in Britain.

The name Cornwall originates from the words “Cornovii” and “Waelas,” meaning hill dwellers and strangers.

In 2010, the largest ever Cornish pasty was made – weighing a mega 1,900lb and 15ft in length. It was made in Bodmin.

The last known fluent speaker of the Cornish language was Dolly Pentreath, who died in 1777.

Cornwall plays home to UK’s only recognised ‘big wave’ surf spot - The Cribbar, a reef located just off Newquay. Waves have been known to reach upward of 30ft when conditions are favourable.

Cornwall was the birthplace of two of the world’s scientific pioneers: Richard Trevithick (born 1771) – famous for developing the first steam engine locomotive and Sir Humphry Davy (born 1778) – best known for discovering several earth elements including: sodium, potassium and calcium.

South Crofty was the last working tin mine in Europe, before eventually being closed in 1998.

There are now over 200 surf-related businesses in Cornwall. The UK surf industry is worth £200 million, £21 million of that is generated in Cornwall alone.

The Duke of Cornwall, Prince Charles, looks after 54,764 hectares of land across 22 counties in Great Britain – just 7,138 of them are in Cornwall.

The scaffolding structure used to build the Eden Project went into the Guinness Book of Records as the largest ever freestanding scaffold structure in the world. The 46,000 poles would have stretched end-to-end for 230 miles (almost from Land’s End to London).

In the Cornish language a ‘pasty’ is known as an ‘Oggy’. Miners wives would shout down the mineshaft: “Oggy, oggy, oggy!” when the pasties were ready and the men would reply: “Oi, oi, oi!”

The winner of Team GB’s first Olympic gold medal at London 2012 was Helen Glover – Helen was born and raised in West Cornwall. Jack Richards (cricket), Brian ‘Stack’ Stevens, Jack Nowell and Phil Vickery (rugby union) are just some Cornish exports to have competed at international level.

The Chough is the national bird of Cornwall. After a 28 year absence from the county, 2001 saw a natural return of the birds. Breeding pairs can now be seen at The Lizard and Land’s End.

The second-largest living fish, the basking shark, visits Cornish waters during July-August each year. The basking shark grows to around 33ft/10m in length.

Approximately 7,000,000,000,000,000 grains of sand lie on Perranporth Beach on the north coast of Cornwall.

Between 1998 and 2008, Cornwall’s population increased by a staggering 9.5%, double the UK county average.

Cornwall’s motto is “One and All”, taken from a song with the same title: “One and All, for duty calls. Shoulder to shoulder, we stand or fall. On land or sea, where ever we be. We Cornish are ready and One and All.”

The longest river within Cornwall is the River Camel at 50km; while the highest point in the county is Brown Willy, a hill with a summit at 1,378km above sea level.